I am relatively new in the field of blogging, although I wouldn’t mind calling myself a survivor in the blogosphere. After the premature death of two of my blogs and a a new one rising slowly, I have been able to gather some thoughts and to do’s that I think might help others as well in generating a little bit of traffic. Things you read here might be something you already know and have already applied. I just felt the urge to let it out what I think is a good way to get traffic for all the bloggers out there.

Charity Starts At Home

When you start a blog the first thing you will notice is the dead traffic. You have written twenty posts within ten days and all in vain, whats the point in writing if nobody is reading it, right?

Well, here is the catch. Don’t remember your family and friends only when you need money or free beer. Sometimes they can be the biggest booster for your traffic as well. As the saying goes ” Charity Starts At Home”, go ahead and try this. Have them subscribe to your feeds, comment on your posts and you will see a steady stream of traffic. Also, if you have good content and you write well I bet they would promote your blog to others at work and home as well. Free advertising and a good way to start out on traffic.

Social Networking

So you think MySpace, Facebook and all other social networking sites out there are a waste of time eh? Think again. These sites have millions of users and those million users are all your potential visitors, so get out there and participate. Social networking sites can give you huge boost when it comes to gaining traffic. I am not a big MySpace fan but I still do get out there and try to network with other members so as to get mroe exposure for my blog.

Forums and Discussion Board

Forums and Discussion boards are a must as well. You have no idea what participating on a forum can do to your blog in terms of traffic. Most of the forums have what they call ” Show off your Blog ” or ” Introduce yourself ” sections so go ahead and let yourself out there. Also, using your blog URL as your signature really helps, I click on any site that is listed as a signature, its just hard not to.

Word of Mouth

I am still amazed at how many people ignore the most effective way of marketing. Yes, word of mouth is still one the most effective ways of marketing. When you find yourself waiting for a bus at a bus station, spark a conversation with others and slowly start talking about your blog and what you are doing. Ask them what they do and tell them what you do. you might as well tell them you just blog for living, heck they will never find you again and impressed with you they might start one as well. You just marketed your blog and inspired somebody to start a blog, kudos to you!

StumbleUpon

I am pretty much sure most of the bloggers out there use SU. This can be one of the most effective ways to get traffic. Although SU traffic is short lived, it is a surefire way to get yourself seen. Whether or not you will be able to grab the viewers attention is upto the content on your blog. But atleast it popped on their screen and if you write good enough, there you have a returning visitor. So get out there and stumble what you like and you will see others stumbling for you as well. You give and you get .

Promotional Stuff

Yeah, yeah it costs money. When I first started this blog I went to every promotional gift site and looked at the pricing on how I can get a shirt, pen, mugs with my blog name on it for free. Most of the times these kinds of sites will have promotional offers as well so you can get your blog printed on a pen, a shirt or mugs for free. I googled couple keywords and came up with couple sites. I simply signed up as a new customer and filled out some forms and there I got 5 shirts, 30 pens and 2 mugs and all I had to pay was shipping which was about $9.50. Not bad for all that promotional gear I got.

Get A Business Card

There is nothing more appealing and impressive than looking professional. So go ahead and do yourself a favor and order some business cards. guess what? You can find these for free as well, just google ” free business cards” and you will have some results to browse through. You will still have to pay the shipping price but its a small amount to pay for looking all that professional .

And Finally, Give It Some Time

Like I wrote on the previous post, everything takes time. Give it a while and let your blog build itself, you will have to put your effort every day and you and your blog will get where you want, together!

Tags: Blogging, Marketing //